Weirdness: A Young Boy's Paper Game Boy Shows the Power of Imagination

While many of us may be lucky enough to have all of the entertainment we want right at our fingertips, what do you do when you have to make your own fun? You could inadvertently dabble in 2D platform design, for one.

Reddit user Juankestein has posted images of a paper "Game Boy" that he made when he was nine years old. As you can see in the image above, it's a small piece of rolled up paper that unravels to show five hand-drawn levels of different themes, which you presumably play by moving your finger along while using a lot of imagination; it's a very simple version of how some 2D platformer levels were initially designed back in the day.

You can see all five "levels" below, and we certainly hope that enthusiastic young gamers of the current day may still produce the occasional charming piece of hand-crafted art in place of playing the real thing.

Welsh ex-pat Tom is responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. He's the guy to thank for the generally brilliant nature of the content which massages your eyeballs on a daily basis. Also has an unhealthy obsession with all things Bowser.

More Stories

User Comments (34)

That's cool I made something like that myself in the day - a wooden GameBoy (even had colours on the screen!) with just a still picture of a tank and some planes - It wasn't difficult to imagine playing it

Awesome! My brother and I used to do the same thing! We actually finished an entire Dizzy game and sent it to Codemasters! They replied saying the loved it but weren't looking to remake the Dizzy franchise as they were focusing on racing and sports games; but sent a whole load of cool promotional stuff! If only they weren't so racing-focused at the time...

Oh man. That reminds of when I was a child. I would draw levels on notepads all the time when my Game Boy was hidden away from me. Ah, that brings back memories. Heck, I still have some of that imaginative kid in me now.I've recently been typing bios for Advance Wars COs I made.

This certainly brings back memories! Before I got a Wii (my first system), I would occasionally sit in bed, close my eyes, and pretend I was playing a video game. I remember all of them were about a living red pickle, and he would try to get through traffic jams in order to reach a space shuttle launch.

I use to have a imagination like this, than I went to school and the teachers said I was too imaginative ¬¬ I remember when I was a kid, I played Super Mario Bros 3 sooo much that I would imagine and draw more worlds and levels for Mario and Luigi to travel in. Awesome article, great read

Pfft! His art sucks! He kept using the same snake over and over again! Take an art class kid!!!

Just kidding. That reminds me of mazes I would make on graph paper. It would lead to one of four exits on the edge of the page. You pick one and flip the page over to find out if you made it out or fell into a trap. Good times.

Wow that is nifty. It is awesome to see kids' imaginations come to life. Especially with this. I mean that is just creative and amazing. I would like to make one of those one day. I really appreciate what the guy did. It is amazing and is quite touching.

I once made something like that, for whenever I was temporarily banned from video games. It was like a Top-down Final Fantasy game. Instead of using my finger, I used a tiny piece of paper with a drawing of a guy. I used small pieces like that to make a health bar and weapons and stuff. Good times.

I did exactly the same thing. On a receipt roll paper, it had was like one or two meters long. I also did a tamagotchi thing, with a different sets of "screens" to be inserted into the main "device", heh.

Wow, that's adorable! So cool! hah, that reminds me of when I was a kid. i made a laptop out of paprr and pretended it worked. i also drew and cut out Pokemon and megaman characters and pretended they were toys.

I never had any consoles growing up, so I did stuff like this all the time as a kid. I once created a GameBoy using an envelope and then made little "cartridges" out of paper that could fit inside it with drawings of games I liked on them. Since I had a little window cut out where the screen would be, you could see the drawings when the carts were inside, so I'd pretend I was playing games that way.

Good for you Kiddo!! You are a budding artist and have a grand ability ...NOW ADULTS, don't swash this kids imagination...out of him!!!! Don't tell him not to Waste time .. ADULTS get over it...this kid is going to be a great thinker and even better person for his neat ability to ... MAKE FUN.

wow, i used to make systems i wanted out of paper as well! I also made my own "games" by drawing a bunch of levels, stapling them together, and creating and cutting out characters to go through the levels Me and my brother always played the games i made together.